Oceania

On Saturday, 8 November delegates attending the annual NZ Labour Party
conference at the Christchurch Convention Centre were able to witness
two strongly contrasting styles of democracy.

Inside the Convention Centre proceedings were carefully stage-managed to
avoid any chance of controversy or dissent - all the media focus was
thrown on a triumphant presidential-style address from Prime Minister
Helen Clark. Debate on contentious issues, such as government funding
for tertiary education and Labour’s ongoing support for the US-led ’War
on Terror’, was either left out of the conference agenda or moved out
into fringe workshops that had no chance of bringing about a change on
the party’s statute books.

Meanwhile, across the road from the Convention Centre, a crowd of about
150 protesters shouting out their opposition message to the conference
delegates were kept at bay by at least 30 police officers. While the
turn out for the lobby was relatively small, the protest was still
highly significant in that it was the first such event since Labour came
to power in 1999 and also because of the diverse coalition of groups
taking part.

Student delegations from all three South Island Universities mixed with
anti-war activists and campaigners against the lifting of the
government-imposed moratorium on GM field trials. Members of the
National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) were also there to protest
against the withdrawal of government funding from the Queen Mary Drug &
Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre - the only facility of its kind in New
Zealand - that now looks almost certain to close. The National
Distribution Union (NDU) was there representing its members in the
clothing and textile industry whose jobs are being threatened as a
result of the government’s decision to slash tariffs on imported
clothing goods.

While it was disappointing to see the NDU opposing the tariff cuts with
the protectionist argument that the government should bail out
inefficient capitalists in the manufacturing sector, instead of calling
for nationalisation and workers’ control and management, their
willingness to fight in defence of workers’ interests was a welcome
contrast to the craven tactics of the national leadership in the NZ
Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU).

When Helen Clark announced to conference Labour’s intention to introduce
legislation before parliament giving workers’ four weeks paid holidays a
year - effective only from April 2007 - CTU president, Ross Wilson, was
quick to label it as a victory for the union movement and for the
strategy of "social partnership" (in which the idea of trade unions as
representing workers’ interests is abandoned in favour of union
incorporation into the apparatus of the capitalist state).

Wilson and his right-wing friends in the Engineering Printing and
Manufacturing Union (EPMU) - who were also present at the conference -
have claimed a mandate from the recent CTU conference for "social
partnership" and a tri-partite pact between government, employers and
trade unions as "the only way forward" for workers in this country.

Fortunately, unions such as the NDU and the Service and Food Workers’
Union (SFWU), have publicly rejected the partnership model and are still
prepared to criticise the Labour government.

Alternative needed to Labour

Like Tony Blair’s "Third Way" government in Britain the Clarke
government in NZ carries out neo-liberal policies. In NZ there appears
to be no immediate prospect of left-wing trade unions transferring their
political allegiances elsewhere. In part, this is because most of the
unpopular ’reforms’ introduced by the Blair government in areas such as
public services and tertiary education are already well entrenched in NZ
- allowing NZ Labour to avoid a head-on confrontation with its working
class constituency. Also the majority of trade unions in NZ are not
directly affiliated to Labour Party and so the issue of the trade union
funding for political parties is not posed in the same way as it is in
Britain.

It will probably need an economic recession to drive Labour into a
head-on confrontation with the working class, as the government acts to
salvage once again the profitability of NZ big business at the expense
of working people. Today socialists must rebuild a fighting, democratic
trade union movement and support attempts by community groups or other
working class organisations to mount an electoral challenge to Labour.